The Vermonster | Rock Art Brewery

0 characters.
We love reviews! Turn your rating into one with ≥ 150 characters. Awesome. Thanks for the review!

In English, explain why you're giving this rating. Your review must discuss the beer's attributes (look, smell, taste, feel) and your overall impression in order to indicate that you have legitimately tried the beer. Nonconstructive reviews may be removed without notice and action may be taken on your account.

Reviews by MbpBugeye:

Appearance
The beer is a dark, ruddy purple. It looks quite muddy, but not fully opaque. There is a short head leaving crackly lace.

Aroma
The aroma starts off figgy and fruity, but not bright and vibrant levels of fruity ale yeast. There is some brown sugar peppered in as well. Oxidation comes around, bringing aromas of dying, dried hops.

Taste
The flavor starts out with aged, oxidized notes that simply seem like staled malts and hops. The back half of the flavor is quite bitter. There are notions of pine and citrus, but the flavors are muffled and seem faded. Caramel and brown sugar lends a malty base .

Mouthfeel
Full bodied and somewhat sticky. The carbonation is a healthy medium. The dry finish is the best part.

Overall
A decent barleywine, but ultimately fairly typical. I can tell this has a little age on it, but perhaps not enough age. It could have been in that awkward phase barlewine geeks so often talk about. Enjoyable nonetheless, even though I prefer less bitterness in my barleywines.

More User Reviews:

We can't see why 10 percent ABV and 100 IBUs can't live up to the name. Extreme lives in Vermont!

Head retention performs very well, with a good amount of stickage from a sizable head. Weathered copper color, good clarity as long as you leave the sediment in the bottle, obviously. A big aroma here, wildflowers, citrus peel, pine sap and spearmint come from the hops, with a smattering of alcoholic fruitiness and malt sweetness underneath. So smooth and full bodied with a bitty character solely from the massive amount of hops used. Hop bitterness is, without a doubt, strong but never to the point of absolute overkill; it's always on top with this tagalong tangerine/orange flavor. The alcohol has no problem pushing the taste buds around with a handful of fruity esters and a mild, clean solvent character. Hops drop a load of flavors, chocolate mint, evergreen, blonde tobacco and tangerine zest. While balance is not even on the table, the malt backbone holds together quite well with both toasted grain and caramel flavors in the middle. Finishes with a long, lingering hop bitterness and steers toward dry.

Wow, is this Bigfoot's uncle? Not for the faint of palate as this beer rips across the taste buds. However, a must for the hophead and a great find for the typical beer geek. As for cellaring, don't. Drink it fresh and let the hops take you for a ride.

In a tulip glass this beer was a dark red/brown color with a thick tan head and a good bit of lace.
Aroma of fruit and caramel.
Interesting taste: raisin, caramel, and tobacco. They went really well together. A bite of hops at the end.
Alcohol was certainly noticeable, but did nothing to detract from the beer.
Very nice to drink.

D: I think 1 bomber is enough, but for the style I think that it's expected. I think after this my tastebuds will not be too happy for a different beer. 10% is not noticed so it's not hard to drink the bomber. A good American Barleywine.

It is a BIG BEER!! The Rock Art Brewery's Vermonster is a BIG FUN beer, also quite strong on the alcohol level (as I'm getting a little buzzed as I write this).
So, the hops overpower the malts. Interesting that the advertising of the beer talks more about malts than hops. This is a problem, you know I keep talking about the balance of beers. This beer is not balanced. It is a barleywine, it is supposed to be strong, and it is.

Pours a dark brown color with a small white head. The first whiff is strong on the hops, specifically a strong piney aroma. You also get a little caramel malt and alcohol in the aroma. The taste is a lot of pine and grapefruit hops up front, with a strong caramel backbone later in the taste. When the beer is cold, it is very unbalanced and hoppy. The beer gets much more balanced as it warms up, although the alcohol stays present throughout. Not really sure how close this fits the American Barleywine style since it is so hoppy, but it is very good regardless. Recommended.

Purchased at the Foodery in Northern Liberties. Dark amber in appearance. Smells hoppy for a barley wine. A ton of pine hops in taste without a lot of malt behind it. The hops are a tad harsh and the alcohol burn is noticeable. A pretty good beer but nor really a barleywine IMO. I wonder what aging would do for it.

Pours a deep amber with small head and some lacing. Nose is very sweet, malty and strong, very nice.

One of the best barleywines I've ever had, easily. Very sweet and malty rich and sharp. Super hoppy at 100IBUs but goves very will with the huge malt bill, extremely well balanced and very drinkable for such a big beer.

Received this in a trade with TheRowan. Excited to try it after all the fuss raised by Annheiser/Inbev over the name! Thanks Rowan!

Appearance- Pours a very dark but not opaque shade of brown with about a half finger of lightly tanned head rising up. Head dies fairly quickly, leaving some lacing however, though not as much as I expect necessarily for a barleywine.

Smell- Interesting, and I can tell this will be on the hoppier side of barleywine. Lots of big sweet caramel malts up front. However, this is balanced out surprisingly evenly with a good dollop of resiny hops which are also very evident on the nose. They provide a bit of a bite, and there is just a touch of astringent alcohol noticeable as well.

Taste- Here, it is hops, then malt for me. The first thing I notice is the presence of a good deal of piney hop bitterness, followed then by a healthy amount of malt sweetness. I find that the flavors are both nice but don't blend together as well as they could, with both a fairly distinct bitterness, then followed by a fairly distinct sweetness. This may just be me but I think they could blend together a touch nicer.

Mouthfeel/Drinkability- Good levels of carbonation, though I find that the mouthfeel is neither as substantial or as slick in the mouth as I like in a solid barleywine. The lack of flavor integration also hurts this beer a bit on drinkability.

Overall, a pretty okay barleywine. Glad I got a chance to try it but I can't say it was my particular cup o' tea.

Ruddy caramel colored with an inch-high head of dimpled frothy foam. Good retention.

Low aroma of sweet malt, not cloying, and a mixture of floral and faint citrus hops.

Flavor initially of grapefruit rind hops, followed by some malt sweetness, but the malt is dominated by the hops. Some grainy brown sugar tries to work its way in, but is quickly squashed by the alcholic vapors and warmth that wraps around the mouth. A bit of caramel/toffee emerges in the finish, but seems subdued for the style. Style seems to straddle DIPA and barleywine.

Excellent mouthfeel, full and creamy, rich and satisfying. Good sipper, pretty drinkable, but this one definitely has some strength to it.

Taste: Big malt and big hop flavor have not blended yet. A lot of good stuff happening, but way too young. Alcohol is a tad harsh but should mellow out with age.

Mouthfeel: Chewy, in a good way. The heaviness of all that malt and the hop bitterness balance out well, though both are a little rough.

Drinkability: An enjoyable old ale/English barleywine. I think this brew has tremendous potential for ageing. A lot of flavors reminiscent of a very young Thomas Hardy's. Should be 5's across the board in a year or two. Ironically, the first true 'extreme' beer from RA does not carry the label that they have plastered on so many beers. One possible problem: there are already some oxidized sherrylike notes so this might not be as long-lived as I'd hope.

Calls itself a dipa, and while I was looking at the dark brown color and taking the beer in, I was thinking this was more like a barleywine in every way. Glad to see it is classified as such on this website.

The aroma was bready, doughy. The regular barleywine of theirs seemed to have a higher degree of chocolate to it than most, that was not present here so much, just a massive malt bill (110lbs per barrel!) that soaked up pretty much a lot of the abv and hops, balance achieved. Couldn't really pick up any hop mouthfeel out of this, no citrus, pine etc. . . just a bit of bitterness, that was tempered. Big on toffee, low on carbonation (not to the degree is was problematic though). No idea how fresh or old this was, picked up at Sun Devil liquors where you need to bring some carbon dating equipment judging solely by the dust on the beer.

Decent price, but probably wouldn't purchase again without some knowledge as to the age of the beer.

Poured into a New Belgium glass dark mahagony brown. The scent is of strong malted sweetness, with chocolate notes. The taste is rather smooth for a barleywine. Very well balanced of hops and malts, no over use that shocks the toungue. The mouthfeel doesn't have any noticable alcohol burn for this amount of abv. This is overall a very nice barleywine, and very drinkable.